Deep down below us we hear the boiling caldrons of lava grinding, gurgling, growling. Now we hear the report of big guns and little guns, of musketry and of cannon, as if the damned are bombarding each other with the artillery of hell! Report chases report through the subterranean caverns like deep thunder galloping after thunder. The angry flames continue to leap and crackle. Occasionally the whole crater, which looks like the veritable mouth of hell, glows with intense brilliancy and glitters and sparkles with ten thousand points of dazzling light. The volume of steam, or “the mighty column of wreaths and curling heaps of lighted vapor,” continue to pour forth with frightful rapidity. Every moment witnesses a new upheaval of red-hot lava and consequently a fresh shower of fire. The guide now informs me (I did not know it before) that the night is far spent, and yet there are other things to see. Going round on the northeast side of the mountain and descending a few hundred yards from the top, we come to a stream of red-hot lava—an actual river of fire—bursting forth from the mountain side and flowing down into the valley. It looks like a stream of melted iron slowly winding its way adown the blackened mountain-side, bearing upon its heated bosom great quantities of glowing brimstone and red-hot rocks. Ever and anon the rocks in the stream dash against each other with such force as to break themselves to pieces, then follow a slight explosion and blaze. The angry flames like fiery fiends leap into the air and vanish. As one stands enveloped in the blackness of the night, contemplating this wonderful phenomenon—these flames, suddenly bursting and vanishing, chasing each other in quick succession, look like the incessant flashes of lurid lightning! Flame rises after flame, vanishing away in the darkness like winged devils chasing each other! I am filled with admiration, and at the same time struck with awe and chilled with fear. I do not know at what moment the whole volcano may boil over and pour forth a thousand cataracts of fire, as in 1872. I feel that I want to go, that I must go, yet I can not leave. I go a few paces and stop, looking first at the glowing column above me, then at the winding, fiery stream below. I have seen many mountains, some of them rising to heaven, covered with snow, and at night crowned with stars; but never before have I seen one smoke-plumed and wreathed with flame, one belching forth fire and brimstone, one whose iron-belted sides poured forth a river of fire—a moving flood of flame. But why continue? Why describe the indescribable? For, reader, I assure you that unless I, like Vesuvius, had a tongue of fire and a voice of thunder, unless words were gems that would flame and flash with many-colored light upon the canvas and throw thence a tremulous glimmer into the beholder’s eyes, it were vain indeed to attempt a description of God’s imperial fireworks. CHAPTER XLV. ROME—ANCIENT AND MODERN.